[WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkkkk site link policy

[Steve Summit]

jayjg wrote:
> On 7/2/07, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> If the "attack sites" portion of WP:NPA merely banned links
>> which serve as attacks (an interpretation utterly consistent
>> with the rest of NPA), if it did not try to resurrect BADSITES
>> by punitively banning all links to an unnamed (and unnamable) list
>> of shunned sites, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.
>
> Look, let's start talking some sense now. ED, WR are attack sites,
> nothing more. They have no value whatsoever, and, unless under some
> extraordinarily unlikely circumstances, there's simply no reason to
> link to them.

No, Jay, you start talking sense.  Just because you can't imagine
a reason to link to them, does not mean that Wikipedia needs a
formal policy stating that no one may ever link to them.

> On the other hand, the number of sites like them are fairly small, and
> people are generally sensible about these things: no-one is going to
> extrapolate from that to saying "we can't link to the New York Times",

I am not making that argument.

> and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly
> important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and
> unforeseen turn of events.

But those turns of events are not, in fact, so bizarre or unforeseen.

You claim that the blanket ban is acceptable because reasonable
people can decide to make exceptions if necessary.  But why go
that route?  Why not say that links -- to any site, anywhere --
which serve as attacks, are attacks, and are banned under NPA?
Why not let reasonable people realize that this is a sufficient
policy, that will disallow all the troublesome links just as
effectively as the blanket ban would?  What additional protective
power is gained by proactively applying the blanket ban?  Is it
worth its cost?